Human
by Not Even The Turtle
Summary: The Phantom never considered destiny a part of his meaningless existence. He was weak, powerless, worth less than a speck of ectoplasmic dust. So when destiny comes hurtling at him, he's unprepared. But learning to be a human wouldn't be easy whether he'd known he was going to be one or not. AU T for language and conflict
1. Prologue

Prologue

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Green and black vortexes swirled endlessly around in circles, making up the backdrop for the area a young ghost currently floated through. He wove in and out between the hovering doors that bobbled up and down in the negative space. His eyes shimmered an eerie emerald hue, flickering back and forth nervously as a sliver of blue mist slid from his mouth.

"No! Not now..." He muttered, knowing that there was another ghost somewhere just out of his sight. Usually there were no other specters around this area during the current time. He knew by the chill in his throat that he would have to hide, and hide fast. There was no telling what a more powerful spirit would do to a weak soul like his. Though he had no way to defend himself, he was very grateful to his only power that alerted him to any other ghostly presences. It had saved his hide on many occasions.

The white haired boy managed to hide behind a door just as the spirit passed by. The cold from within constricted in his chest as it detected the exact strength of the other ghost. And was it strong! The hidden ghost had to clench his teeth to prevent himself from emitting another frozen gasp. Any sound he made now would surely alert the powerful being just out of his range of vision to his location.

The sensation was gone quickly, though, allowing the weak ghost to let out a breath. Whoever had just passed by must have been in an awful big hurry to get somewhere to have flown by that fast. Sighing again, the ghost continued on his original path with a little more wariness than before. Not that he knew where he was going. Familiar frustration dug at the ghost child's insides as he recalled for the millionth time in his fourteen years of spectral existence what he could not recall.

Most ghosts could remember their previous life. Some knew their exact purpose for being in the Ghost Zone. A few existed because this world could not exist without them. And then there was him; a Phantom. No memories, no purpose, no reason to exist. Not even a name. The most the Phantom ever got was a vague sensation that pulled him in some seemingly random, ambiguous direction. Which is what he was currently 'busy' doing.

"Why do I even bother?" The Phantom child grumbled bitterly to himself as he went to the left of what seemed to be an old locker door. He huffed, knowing he had literally nothing better to do. Phantoms were rare as they come. In fact, he was the only one he knew of. But the thing about Phantoms, as little in number as they may be, they were useless. Not even the Zone renowned Skulker would want him in his collection. The teenage ghost reflected on how lucky he was to have his one measly power. Without purpose, a ghost was weak, powerless. And this Phantom was as purposeless as they come, because, so far, his purpose was to 'go in this random direction for no reason'.

The bitter, depressed thoughts of the Phantom were momentarily interrupted as a spark of green caught in his peripherals. Normally, such a small thing would have gone unnoticed by anyone. After all, the entire Ghost Zone was filled with bright, randomly flashing, green auras. But this spark, barely a twinkle in a particularly dark patch of empty space, had caught not only his attention, but drawn him off of his path. A familiar light tug on his soul made itself known as he turned in the direction of where the flicker had just disappeared.

The ghost hummed emptily as his mysterious sense of direction guided him towards the patch of space. Then something strange happened. If he had a heart, it would have stopped in its place at the sight of the huge, green sphere he was suddenly trapped in.

"What the-" The Phantom began to wonder out loud. He was interrupted by his own screams that tore from his throat. Pain. Searing, burning pain coursed through every fiber of his being. It was as if he were being melted from the inside, out. His agonized cries did not cease until he was suddenly released from the sphere, which shot him out like a bullet from its midst. He was too weak and barely conscious to notice the door rapidly approaching his face. When he did notice it, he was way to close to brace himself.

His eyes squeezed shut as he tried to prepare himself for the impact that never came. A strange sensation overtook him instead. He felt the area below his chest flip over several times as he opened his eyes, realizing with a startled gasp that he was falling. Not floating. But why hadn't he hit the door? He had never been able to go intangible before, so why now?

The Phantom tried his best to turn n mid-descent, only to realize he was coming up fast on a rather pink building floating on a bright green cloud. His arms went out in front of him, hoping desperately that he would go intangible again and not splatter himself all over the fuchsia roof.

"Come on, come on!" He yelled at himself, closing his eyes once again. And then another peculiar occurrence happened. The air around him changed from spirit radiating plasma, to rushing wind that whisked past his face. Then he was met with hard ground. A different kind of pain from the previous one raced through his body, sending the breath out of him and his arms to his now injured stomach. He struggled to breathe and ended up making slurping sounds as he gasped for air.

Wait...

Air?

The Phantom's eyes bolted open. Darkness surrounded him, and he was suddenly aware of a cold, slick feeling covering his body. He struggled to sit up, as his chest was still in copious amounts of pain. He peeled one arm away from his side to look at it closely. There must have been a light on somewhere nearby, because an iridescent shimmer covered his skin alongside dark, red streaks of blood and bits of rock.

"S-skin? Blood?" he questioned. These weren't something ghosts had. Come to think of it, needing to breathe and rain weren't something ghosts had either. The Phantom curiously turned his peach colored, solid arm in the light. If he didn't know any better he'd say that he was-

"-kid! I said, are you okay!?" The boy jumped as his hearing suddenly started working. The half concerned, half angry shout had startled him out of his shocked stupor. The light that had been illuminating his arm became blinding as he turned to look at the source of the sound. The wielder of the light could not be seen, and the ghost had to lift his hand up to cover his eyes because of how bright the light was. How had he not noticed that before?

"Jeez, Frank, calm down and get your spotlight off of him! The kid's obviously in shock!" Came another gruff voice from the darkness behind the white light. The first voice mumbled bad natured before the light was turned slightly so that it wasn't directly in the boy's eyes. The Phantom tried to blink away the spots impeding his vision, but the second voice continued on before he regained his sight, "Hey, Son. Are you feeling okay? You look pretty banged up there. Can you stand?"

A hand came at him from out of nowhere. The ghost boy gasped and shot up and staggered backwards, which was a mistake. Instantly the world spun around him and the melting pain from before came back with a vengeance. He had only managed a step or two back before his vision went truly black and he fell to his side.

"Whoa! Catch him!" One of the voices yelped out before he passed out entirely.

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**This will probably be the shortest chapter in this series. XD It gets more interesting, I swear!**


	2. Hospital Gowns are Cold

**_Okay! Well, it might be Wednesday, but just barely! Sorry for the delay._**

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_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

The constant, irritating chirping to his left is what had awoken the young ghoul. He groaned and lifted his hand to his aching head, only for it to be stopped when he realized something was attatched to it. Prying open his eyes, he found that he was situated in a dimly lit room. Turning his head took some effort, but when he did he could see the machine that was the source of the sounds to his left. Beside it sat an IV stand which held a bag with crystal clear liquid in it. His eyes followed along as a single drop from the bag slid down a slim rubber tube.

That was strange. Didn't hospitals have green ectoplasm in the IV's?

It was then the memories of what had happened all came rushing back to the Phantom. The speed at which the beeping sounds came forth from the monitor increased rapidly as he began to panic. He struggled to sit upright, gasping in pain when he put weight on his arms to support himself. He slumped back. Panting, he lifted his shivering arm up and glanced over it warily.

"Th-this can't be possible!" He exclaimed in response to what he saw. Bandages covered the entirety of his left forearm. It looked like they had been freshly placed too, by the crisp white coloring. But he shouldn't need bandages. He was a ghost! Nothing made sense. The more he thought about it, the less he understood. His entire body felt oddly heavy and warm, not to mention sore all over. He closed his eyes and searched for anything he knew, anything familiar.

The Phantom's body relaxed slightly as he sought out the ever present pull at the core of his being. It was not as strong as it usually was, which was saying something considering how gentle a pull it had been in the first place, but it was there. He sighed in pained releif at the revelation. He wasn't human. He couldn't be!

"This room!" Came an impatient voice from beyond the front of his bed. The relief that he had been feeling was instantly replaced with dread as the lights to his room were flicked on mercilessly. The Phantom hissed and attempted to cover his eyes from being blinded by light again, but stopped with a yelp as the pain in his arm held him back.

"Oh, sorry there!" A masculine voice apologized before scolding someone for not warning him about the lights. The teenager blinked rapidly a few times before squinting at the beings in the room. Their appearances made him stiffen even more. There was no doubt that these two were humans.

A tall male with dark hair stood at the foot of his bed, brown eyes slightly cold but also compassionate at the same time. The long white garb he wore over his blue scrubs gave himself away as either a doctor or a nurse. The one who was obviously a nurse was the tiny, young, blond haired girl next to the man, wearing flourescent purple scrubs and frantically looking at the monitors he was hooked up to.

Despite the discomfort it brought him, the ghost rapidly backed away from where the humans were standing. His eyes darted between them, and when the man stepped forward as a reaction to the Phantom's sudden retreat, he glared hard at him.

"Stay away from me!" He warned, biting his lip at the end to hold in the signs of pain he was feling in his lower abdomen now. The male human immediately stepped back with palms raised in a gesture of surrender.

"Hey, easy there fella'!" He was gently soothed, "My name is Doctor Carmichael. We just want to help. You have some pretty serious injuries, and the heart monitor went a little haywire there for a sec. We were concerned that you may have been having a heart-attack."

_Nice try. I don't have a heart. _The spirit thought sarcastically as he continued to silently glare at the doctor with suspicion. He knew that since his ghost sense didn't go off, that these were humans. But if so, why would they be reacting so calmly? He was a spirit, and if they had treated his injuries they obviously knew that. That sinking dread crept back into his chest as he realized what the evidence may be pointing to.

"Hey, can I fix that for you?" Dr. Carmichael gently asked. The ghost boy jumped, having ben too caught up in his own worries to notice that the tall male had gotten closer to his arm with the IV in it. By instinct he retracted his limb. He flinched when he felt a sharp pinch in the crook of his arm and looked down to inspect it quickly. His face paled when he saw the red dripping onto his pale blue hospital gown.

"B... Blood!" He stuttered, breath picking up pace as white hot panic flashed through him.

"His heart rate just doubled!" He distanly heard the nurse warn, but he couldn't take his eyes off of the wound. Ghosts didn't have blood. Sure, they got injured and sometimes had ectoplasm seep from the wounds. But not blood. Humans had blood.

"Hey, hey! Calm down buddy. Take deep breaths! Can you hear me?" The Doctor's voice brought him back somewhat, making him realize that he was currently breathing in and out very rapidly. Deciding to take the human's advice, the Phantom tried to gain control of his breaths.

"That's it. Good. Even breaths. Julie, make a note of his hemophobia, please." Dr. Carmichael intructed as he gently placed a cloth over the boy's trembling arm. He tried to make eye contact with him, but the ghost wouldn't look away from his arm, "Hey, it's okay. You just tore your IV out a little is all, no big deal." The Phantom's head shot up at the last statement. No big deal? He had no idea just how big of a deal this was!

"B-but..!" He struggled to explain while attempting to gain control of his body once more so he could get his arm away from the man's grasp, "I'm a... Human?" The doctor blinked at him blankly a couple times before a concerned expression fell over his features.

"What's your name, hm?" He asked in a tone that sounded suspiciously like condecendance.

"I-I don't remember." The Phantom boy answered truthfully, wondering why he was having a conversation when he should be running for his life, "I don't have one?"

"I see, and do you know how you got here?" The doctor continued on, nodding as if he had actually given the right answer before.

"No, I d-don't." Another truth slipped from his mouth, "Is this the Earth, right?" Another concerned twitch from the doctor.

"Amity Park Hospital to be exact. You were pretty banged up when you came in. Do you remember how you were injured?"

"Uh... I... fell?" He said unsurely in reply, honestly not sure what had happened. There was one thing he knew for sure though. If these humans found out where he came from and what he was, they would't be treating him so kindly. The thought made him become defensive all over again and he made sure to draw his arms close and huddle away from the doctor, just realizing that the human had already removed the IV in his arm and wiped the blood away while he had been spaced out.

"Fell, huh?" The Doctor questioned as he turned to the table on the side of the bed and carefully placed the bloody IV insert. The tone of his voice was disbelieving, and the Phantom knew there was something wrong with his story, he just didn't know what. The doctor didn't plan on expanding further on the comment, though, as he turned back with fresh gauze and antisceptic that he had produced from the deep pockects of his lab coat. A smile played on his lips empathetically, "Would you let me wrap that arm for you again? We don't want it getting infected."

"No!" The Phantom-turned-human exclaimed as he cringed painfully away from the tall human, who's smile slipped away as quickly as it had come. He glared at the tall man, eyes darting over to a rather fidgety looking nurse. He wasn't aware that he was shaking badly, or that he had tightened into a ball, drawing his knees up to his chest alongside his arms. Dr. Carmichael hummed a short note before apparently deciding not bother the obviously defensive boy.

"Alright, alright. I understand that you don't want to be touched." He carefully worded, keeping his blue gaze even with the teen's frantic one, "Ms. Julie and I will step outside for a bit and let you get over your nerves. We'll bring something back that should help with that, okay?"

The Phantom only stared in confusion at the two as the doctor and nurse pair backed out of the room, leaving the lights on and shutting the door tightly. Why hadn't they forced him to calm down? Were all humans so... gentle? The ghost child shook his head, knowing from many stories he had heard about humans that they were anything but. It must be because they thought he was a human himself that they were so easy on him.

Speaking of which, he felt as if a bomb filled with burning ectoplasm had just been dropped straight into his mind. Upon seeing that the two weren't coming back anytime soon, the boy slowly unfurled himself and inspected his new form. First of all, he wondered why it seemed so natural to have legs. As a ghost he had nothing but a black, whispy tail that constantly flitted back and forth to keep him afloat. But as he gazed at the knobby knees of his human body, he felt nothing abnormal about it. Maybe he could get out of here before the humans returned with whatever they were going to give him so that they could continue with their inspection.

Mind made, he swung his legs over the side of the bed while being careful not to jostle his injured arm and torso, and tenitavely stretched his bare toes towards the floor. A shiver ran up his spine as his skin met with the cold, white tile, and he retracted his feet in surprise.

"Cold!" He grunted, irritating himself in the process. He used to always be cold, and it never bothered him before. It was then he realized that this human body was going to take some getting used to, and it might not be the funnest thing to do. He scowled at the ground, then his curled up toes. This would be so much easier if he were a ghost!

Little did the Phantom realize that the thought was the tigger to return him to his original form. He gasped and sprung back as a ring of light appeared at his waist, splitting into two. One moved down over his stomach and legs while the other came up over his arms and head. The familiar chill of being a ghost filled his being, making him sigh in subconcious relief. Something was not right though. He still had legs. He still felt the pain from his injuries. Most odd of all, though, was the fact that he sensed as if something had changed internally about his ghost form.

It was as if he had gained something.

His thoughts were interrupted for the umpteenth time as his hearing caught wind of a conversation somewhere outside the door. Little did he know that the interruption would be the answer to his baffling sensation.

"I have a low dose sedative that needs to be taken to a patient." Came one unfamiliar voice. The voice of Dr. Carmichael responded to this voice.

"Yes, that's for room 207. Come with me and help me administer it. I hate to do this, but the boy is obviously startled and agressive. Once we get him settled we can conduct further testing on his..."

The Phantom never heard what was supposed to come next, for he found himself flying straight through the floor of his room to escape the humans. Once a level under his previous location, he stopped and realized in shock what he had just done.

"I went... Intangible?" He questioned himself out loud, gazing back up to the white ceiling he had come through. Just what was happening to him? First he was transported to the human world, became human, and now he was gaining more ghostly powers! Though the latter wasn't entirely a bad thing, it still wasn't something good considering the former.

The ghost's gaze flitted about the dark room he was in now, noticing a mirror beside a long couch. He floated over to it and took in his familiar form as well as he could in the low lighting. Well, mostly familiar. He still had legs, even in this form. As soon as he thought about it, though, they switched back into the quivering tail he was used to.

"That's interesting." He mused as he found that a mere thought could transform his lower half. If that was true, maybe if he thought about what it was like being a human-

"Oof!" He grunted as he landed on his human rump on the floor, pain shooting through his body with the rough jostling. He rubbed his left arm as he looked back up into the mirror. The ghost-turned-human froze at the sight of his appearance. His head now held black tufts instead of white, the hair sticking out in an unruly manner. The reflection locked eyes with him, observing the bright blue orbs that replaced the ghostly green that they had been. His skin was pale peach in color and held many bruises and scrapes that were in stark contrast to his previous translucent blue skin, reminding the Phantom of the rumours he had heard about humans being even weaker physically than any ghost.

Then he was a ghost again. The shimmering rings of light encircled his body once again as he transformed between forms.

"I'll have to figure out how this works soon." He muttered, not knowing exactly how to control his powers was going to be annoying. But not annoying enough to make him feel sudden excitement over them. Finally! He had been chasing that fleeting tug for years now, and finally it was paying off! Maybe he could at last find something worthwhile and time filling now that he had these abilities. His mind raced at the thought of what this meant for him, catching a smirk in his reflection. He frowned as soon as he had seen it, though.

What _would_ this mean for him? There had to be some sort of explanation for why this had all happened. He thought back to that spark he had been drawn to, remembering that it was his odd sense of whispy direction that had led him towards it. That green orb he had been stuck in obviously had caused his powers to grow, but why? And why did he turn human? Why was he on Earth?

The confusing, answerless questions swirled madly in his mind. He backed away from the mirror and looked for something to distract him from these strange emotions bubbling up inside of him, threatening to rip out his heart. Stupid humans, always so emotional.

"Oops." He mumbled as he transformed back into a human. Yeah, this was going to get very annoying. The ghost child fumbled backwards on legs that weren't used to walking, running into a bed and falling back into it. He sighed at the ceiling once again before turning his head on the bare mattress. The stack of folded clothes and small paper on top of them caught his eye. They were sitting neatly at the foot of the bed, just waiting for their owner to return. But... had they been there before?

That tug on his soul suddenly jerked forwards, willing him to look at the paper. It was a note, actually.

'_To: Daniel' _It read simply, leaving the Phantom to wonder who this 'Daniel' person was, and who would buy a complete outfit for someone as a gift. A black tee, jeans, socks, sneakers and even underwear were all included in the pile. As much as the Phantom figured whoever these were for needed it, his own human form was getting cold in the scanty medical gown he was currently wearing. Shrugging, he set upon the task of dressing himself. Which was actually quite difficult. It took a few tries to get the pants on, and he wasn't sure which was to put on the shirt. He ended up skipping the socks and shoes entirely.

"Alright, now to get out of here." He murmered as he heard frantic, indecernable shouts from somewhere outside the room. He walked up to the nearest window and peeked out to see that he was on the first floor of the hospital. The boy closed his eyes and thought hard about what it felt like to become intangible. Soon the ghoul-human could feel the brick outer walls sliding past himself. He smirked as he stepped barefoot into soggy grass, "Maybe I'll get the hang of this sooner than I thought."

With that he looked left, then right, noticing a light coming up over the horizon of the very nearby metropolis. His heart moved forward, which was a strange experience considering he never had a heart to do that before. It was as if the pull had increased its strength tenfold, urging him to go towards the denser parts of the city. Like the Phantom had done his whole life, he followed his gut feeling.

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**I wonder what he will find in the city? :)**


End file.
